Prisoner abuse reports were wrong: PM

Page Tools

Prime Minister John Howard today denied misleading the public or the parliament over when Australia first knew about the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by their United States guards.

Mr Howard said he relied on information from the defence department which had turned out to be wrong.

"I am very unhappy that I was misinformed by the defence department," Mr Howard told reporters.

Mr Howard said he had asked Defence Minister Robert Hill to make a statement to the Senate about the chain of events since Australian military personnel learnt of allegations that prisoners had been mistreated in Iraq.

He said the statement would include what knowledge Australian personnel had of communications with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Iraq.

"The minister will, at my request, be making a detailed statement to the Senate when it meets again about the chain of events, about the knowledge of and involvement in and communication with, the ICRC, the CPA, communications back to Australia and the timelines involved in all of that," Mr Howard said.

AdvertisementAdvertisement

Mr Howard said if he had known of reports of abuse earlier than April he would have acted then.

"I would have done the right thing and of course if I'd have known about it, of course I would have expressed my concern," he said.

He said reports of abuse were not passed up the chain of command because they did not involve Australians.

"It was believed that the issue was being responded to and dealt with by the Americans, particularly in relation to the January report," he said.

"And, as I understand it, the working papers that were referred to in the Senate in October clearly contained references to unacceptable behaviour and unacceptable treatment of prisoners."

Another reason the Red Cross report was not passed up the line was that it was believed the American and British responses were satisfactory, he said.

Mr Howard said that to his knowledge, no defence force personnel were involved in abuse or condoned the abuse.

Asked whether there was any point having officers attached to the Iraqi command when they did not keep the government or defence hierarchy informed of crucial reports, Mr Howard said: "That generally is a fair observation and it's one of the things that in the aftermath of this I will be expecting a response from."